The Withdrawal Method (23 page)

"At the daycare," he continued, "where I used to work. I was there for three years after finishing my ECE." He had to concentrate to keep his hands steady on the wheel. "Then one day my boss came up to me and she was like, 'There's been a complaint."'

Sue watched him, waiting.

"It was - I don't know. It ..." Karel breathed. "I just said, 'What?' That's all I could think, What? What? Like it couldn't be real. And I went home that night and my mom and dad were waiting with dinner on the table and I couldn't even look at them, let alone explain what had happened. I felt like I'd maybe even done it - that I might have blacked out for a bit and like sleepwalked my way into something. Or just been kidding around and maybe touched a kid in some way I shouldn't have, without realizing."

"Oh, Karel," said Sue. She reached out and took one of his hands from the steering wheel, cradled it in her lap. He looked over and then turned back to the road. Behind the looming shapes of oak trees identical duplexes slid by, some glowing from the inside, others just dark shadows in the dusk. Her fingers played over his; her thumb stroked his thumb.

"There was an inquiry. It turned up nothing but it went on for months. You live in a small town, everybody talks, and even when they figured out I hadn't done anything, I'd go around and people would still look at me like I was guilty."

Karel drove, his left hand clutching the wheel, his right in Sue's lap. She ran her nails over his knuckles. The sky was a deep bruise.

They turned another corner, headed up a private driveway, and arrived at the trailer park. Karel pulled the Neon in front of Wayne's trailer and sat there, the engine idling. "Looks like we're going to be a little late. Do you think it's a big deal?"

Sue stared out at the trailer. "You live in that thing with your cousin?"

"Yeah."

A chorus of crickets chirped away somewhere nearby.

Karel turned to Sue. "Do you want to see inside?"

In the trailer Karel poured them both glasses of juice. He flicked on the table lamp and a yellow splotch of light spread across the couch. They sat down together and Sue gazed around as if some detail might reveal the secret of the place.

Karel sucked back his juice and cupped the empty glass in both hands. "So, you volunteer over at the SPCA?"

"Saturdays," she said, staring at the curtain that hid Wayne's bed.

"You must be busy, Sujata." The name just came out. Karel felt strange, as though he'd crossed some unspoken boundary.

Sue lifted the glass of juice and sniffed it. In the lamplight, the fuzz on her face was golden. "What's your cousin like?"

"Wayne? Oh, he's all right."

"All right?"

"Well he's nice enough, but one of those people who lives totally for himself -'in the now,' or whatever. Just look at this place. His whole world could up and roll away."

"Not like you."

"Well, no, that's not what I'm saying - that I'm better than him or anything."

"Right. So what are you like?"

"What do you mean?" Karel sat there, staring at the floor, pulling at some loose stitches on the couch with his free hand. "I'm looking for my own place."

Sujata sighed. "You know," she said, "we really ought to get another bonobo in for Ewing. A female."

"To mate?"

"No, no - to control him. Bonobo culture is dominated by the females. The males are pretty much at their mercy. They even dictate when and what to eat. Sex is used as a sort of regulatory device."

"But if we got Ewing a lady, he'd stop fucking the goats. Then you wouldn't need me at all."

Sujata smiled, considering. Outside, the crickets were still chirping.

Karel put a hand on her knee. Sujata slid her hand over his.

"I don't think Ewing even likes me," said Karel.

"Oh? Why's that?"

"I don't know. He's just weird, like he's scared of me or something."

"Hmm..." Sujata paused. "Maybe he's jealous."

They sat in silence, looking around, his hand on her knee, her hand on his hand. Karel's gaze wandered from the front door, over the kitchen, to the Tv, and finally to the curtain. Behind it sat Wayne's waterbed, ready and waiting.

WHEN KAREL ARRIVED at Pet Therapy on Thursday morning, Sally lay coiled up in the same position, shimmering under the fluorescent lights. Sujata had already let the animals out and she was sitting with Ewing on a stump outside. The bonobo had his arms wrapped around her neck; both of them were gazing up at a solemn, overcast sky.

"God, I'm so tired," Karel said.

When Sujata spoke, it was less to Karel than to the clouds. "He's very clingy today."

Karel stood, wavering. He reached out to put a hand on Sujata's shoulder. Ewing hissed. "Jesus," said Karel, but Sujata just stood and carried the chimp past him into the playroom.

The kids showed up and flocked to the snake. Karel was left alone out in the pen with the goats, a golden retriever named Laika who was visiting for the day, and, eventually, Ewing, whom Sujata had ushered outside. He sat by the door with his arms folded, glaring at Karel.

"Oh, fuck you," Karel told him. Then, whispering, "We had sex, you know. Me and her."

Ewing buried his head in his chest.

"Stupid fucking monkey."

Karel sat down on one of the tree stumps, figuring a fiveminute nap was all he needed; then he'd be fresh for the rest of the day. He looked inside, through the playroom window. Sujata had opened the terrarium. The kids were crowding around, more intrigued than ever.

Karel closed his eyes. Soon he found himself tumbling down the dark tunnel of sleep. At its end a dream greeted him, something vague and palely lit. There were dim shapes crowding around what seemed some sort of waiting room, bumping into him as he tried to make his way up to the reception desk. There was no warmth to the bodies; the contact was like brushing up against things made of ice. From somewhere came the mournful sound of something crying.

Karel shuddered and the dream was gone. But the crying remained, now accompanied by frantic, desperate shrieks. He jumped to his feet and looked up to see Sujata hollering and smacking with a broom at something black and quivering. Underneath the black thing - Ewing! - was a bleating goat, legs buckling. Children spilled out of the door, gawking but silent.

Karel scrambled over to help Sujata. Together they tackled Ewing to the ground. The violated goat wobbled off to the corner of the pen, where its comrades huddled around in solidarity. The sobbing waned.

Sujata glared at Karel. "Get Ewing out of here."

Directing the bonobo's erection away from his body, Karel carried Ewing under one arm into the playroom and dumped him on the floor. Back outside, Karel stood by the door watching Sujata pace around the pen. She stopped beside the offended goat and put her hand on its head. The children sat expectantly on the stumps, startled but rapt. Above, the clouds hung heavy and grey with rain.

Sujata stroked the goat's face. Her tenderness, Karel realized, completely belied what had consumed her the night before: bent over on Wayne's waterbed, gasping, the flicker of something primal and hungry in her eyes as she watched Karel go to it over her shoulder. Afterwards she knelt on the floor draining into a T-shirt between her legs, the waterbed sloshing around as Karel stood to pull up his shorts. "Stay," he told her.

"I need to go," Sujata said, already dressing. "Give me a lift?"

The ride home had been silent.

Something wet splashed on Karel's hand. A single droplet of rain trickled along his thumb. Sujata was speaking. "Do you think we can forgive him?" she asked, and the children nodded, murmuring.

Something surged inside Karel. Then it was gone - they were talking about Ewing.

Sujata continued, her voice calm. The children listened in silence. Standing on the periphery, Karel felt himself fading from the scene, like smoke waved out through a kitchen window. Another drop of rain struck him on the face and dribbled down his cheek.

He slid quietly inside the playroom. He figured Ewing knew what he'd done wrong and should be waiting in his cage; it'd just be a matter of heading out back and locking the door. But his little metal cell was empty, the white blanket crumpled in the corner with no bonobo in sight.

Back in the playroom there was no sign of Ewing either, but Karel could sense - what? Something. His eyes took inventory of the room, processing it image by image. The mobiles, twirling in some imaginary wind. The birdcage where Jiva perched silent and still. Children's drawings abandoned on the floor. A scattering of paints and markers and crayons.

Then: the terrarium's wire lid, discarded nearby. The terrarium itself, open, winking with flashes of light. Inside it, Sally, brown and thick and suddenly very much alive, pulling and twisting behind the glass. The swish of her scales, the hiss of rain, and somewhere beneath it all the buzz of fluorescent lights. Karel stood, transfixed, watching. As Sally turned over, from within that scaly knot appeared the grey fingers of something almost human scratching against the inside of the glass.

Karel drifted forward until he was right at the terrarium, looking in. Later, he would realize that his thoughts weren't of heroism - what could he have done, anyway? Instead he was thinking of how it would feel to be caught in the grip of the snake. He watched as Sally curled one last time around Ewing, the length of her rippling forward, crushing his body and pulling the hand away, and thought how it seemed somehow comforting to die like that, embraced.

THE PAST COMPOSED

IN THE END, all the ruckus seems to be about a boy up Judy's tree. I stand there at the bottom, his backpack in my hand, looking up through leaves just starting to bleed the reds and browns of autumn. He's right near the top, this boy - a dark silhouette against the late afternoon sunlight, perched on a branch, shaking, terrified. Inside the house Judy's dogs are still going crazy.

"Hey there," I say, squinting.

"A squirrel chased me up here. I think it had rabies."

"Was it frothing at the mouth?"

"Frothing?"

"Yeah, like with foam coming out of its mouth."

The boy says nothing. The dogs have stopped barking, and the only sound is the dull, faraway hiss and hum of the city.

"You want to come down? I don't see any squirrels around."

He considers for a moment, evaluating the situation - or me, maybe. Then he swings down effortlessly, monkey-like, and lands with a dull thump on the lawn. His clothes seem to belong to someone years older: a Lacoste golf shirt and beige safari shorts, with a pair of blue socks pulled tightly up to his knees.

"All right?" I ask, and hand him his backpack. He's a funny little man, maybe eight or nine. There's something familiar, and vaguely cunning, about his face.

The boy stands there, scanning the front lawn, nervous. I look around too, then up at Judy's house, where I notice, wedged between a pink triangle and a MIDWIVES DELIVER! sticker, the Block Parent sign in the window.

"Oh," I say. "I'm Les. Do you want to come in?"

The boy eyes me, then the house. Eventually he nods and replies, "Okay."

I lead him inside, where the dogs greet us with an inquisitive sniff before letting us through to the kitchen. The boy edges by them, saying, "Good dogs," a gleam of terror in his eyes. I pour him a glass of milk and we both sit down at Judy's tiny kitchen table.

"Next time you get a squirrel after you," I say, "probably best not to go up a tree."

"I came to the door first, but there was no answer."

His glass of milk sits untouched on the chipped Formica tabletop. "You got a name?"

"Pico," he tells me, kicking at the chair with his heels. "Are you even a Block Parent?"

"No, no. That's the lady who owns the house. My sister, Judy."

"So who are you?"

"I live back there." I point out through the kitchen window at the shed in the backyard.

"What?" Pico snorts. "In that thing?"

I tap his glass with my fingernail. "Drink your milk, Pico."

BY THE TIME Judy gets home I am making dinner and Pico has left. He thanked me for the milk, then headed off down the street.

Judy appears in the kitchen, the dogs snuffling eagerly behind her. She slings her purse onto the table and sits down. "Fuck," she sighs. The dogs settle at her feet.

"I've got ratatouille happening here, Jude, and there's tabbouleh salad in the fridge."

"No meat? Pas de viande?" Judy, bless her, is trying to learn French.

"Sorry."

"Christ, Les," she huffs. "You're starting to make me feel like one of those crazy vegan dykes - living on nuts and fruits and berries like a goddamn squirrel."

I laugh and tell her about Pico.

"Pico? What is he, a Brazilian soccer player?"

"No," I say, stirring the ratatouille, recalling the boy's face. "He looks more like a mini-Richard Nixon."

Judy points at the classified ads I've left on the table.

"Any luck?" she asks.

"Nothing yet."

"Not that I want you gone. I mean, you're welcome here as long as you need to stay."

"I know, Jude," I tell her, sprinkling some salt into the pot. "Thanks a lot."

After dinner I head out into the backyard and work until dusk. The table I'm redoing right now is some cheap pine thing I picked up for forty dollars at a garage sale. But with the right stain, corners rounded off, and a good number of chips whittled out of the legs, it'll go for close to a grand in one of the antique stores uptown. I can just imagine some family huddled around it for supper - Mom in her apron doling out fat slices of meatloaf, Dad asking the kids about school, and this sturdy old table anchoring it all like the centrepiece to a Norman Rockwell painting.

Soon it's too dark to see much of anything, so I head inside my little cabin. Before I moved in at the end of the summer, Judy did a nice job fixing it up for me; she put down rugs and painted the wallpaper a quiet beige colour, even brought her fish tank out and set it up in the corner. It's an A-frame, this thing. Like a tent. At first it seemed claustrophobic, but it's turned out pretty cozy.